Morgan Lucas

Morgan Lucas qualified No. 1 for the first time this season on Saturday night. Lucas recorded the second-best lap of his career, a 3.737 at 322.27 mph, on his way to the top of the ladder and the track record.

"I went into the water box thinking, 'If we run a 3.70-anything I'll be happy,' especially since the car doesn't seem to respond to nighttime runs this year," Lucas said. "I don't know what the problem was, and right now I don't really care. I'm just happy for the team because they needed that little shot in the arm. We're still around and still on the radar."

On raceday Lucas was knocked out in the first round by Terry McMillen 3.856/322.11 to 4.139/267.59.

For the second time in as many weeks McMillen drove his Amalie Oil / UNOH / All Star Performance Top Fuel Dragster to the semifinals. This is McMillen's third appearance of the season and fourth of his career.

"When you sit back and think about this, it's almost surreal," McMillen said. "We're now 12 races into this - three times we've been to the semis and five times we didn't qualify; it's a crazy ride but right now we're loving it."

With his ProtectTheHarvest.com/MAVTV Top Fuel dragster running strong, Brandon Bernstein was confident he would be able to make up some ground in the standings. Unfortunately, all of those plans went out in a puff of tire smoke against first-round opponent Khalid al-Balooshi.

"The track got us a little bit today," Bernstein said. "When you are one of the first pairs out, you have the disadvantages of not knowing what the track will hold."

Bernstein said it didn't take long for the warning signs to pop up.

"When I did my burnout, (crew chief) Joe Barlam said the track was just white and the rubber came right up," Bernstein said. "That might be from a lot of doorslammers racing here this weekend because of the JEGS Allstars. Everyone has to go down the same track, and we knew we had to run a good lap because the Balooshi team is good. We stepped on it and just barely missed it; the car just spun the tires a little bit downtrack."

The cars were pretty dead even off the starting line, but at the 300-foot marker Bernstein's tires broke loose and smoked as al-Balooshi sped past.

"It was upsetting after doing that well in qualifying," Bernstein said. "We felt like we were close to a clean lap, but it just got away from us and that was enough for Balooshi to win."

Al-Balooshi crossed the line in 3.817 seconds at 322.80 mph and Bernstein went across in 6.104 seconds at 107.90 mph.

To add insult to injury, the loss also saw Bernstein lose ground in his pursuit for a spot in the top 10 and a place in the Countdown to the Championship. The two drivers Bernstein is chasing, Bob Vandergriff Jr. and Steve Torrence, both won rounds and built their cushion over Bernstein.